“Creak…”
Song You pushed open the door to his room.
The room was very spacious. As soon as he entered, he could tell the bedding had just been taken out from the closet. Zoujiao Temple probably rarely hosted overnight guests, so the bedding had absorbed the closet's smell over time. Upon being taken out and shaken open, the smell dispersed into the room. It was a woody smell, but not unpleasant.
“Ah...” Song You sighed in relief and lay down on the bed.
The feeling of lying on a bed was indeed completely different.
However, he had just lay down and hadn't had the chance to enjoy the sensation when he felt the calico cat pawing at his trouser leg. Understanding, he sat up and picked her up to wipe her paws.
Actually, this process was quite enjoyable.
As he wiped, Song You asked, “Did the heroine notice something about you during the day, Lady Calico?”
“She figured it out a long time ago.” The calico cat lay obediently, her voice soft and clear.
“How did she figure it out?”“I don't know.”
“Then how do you know she has long figured it out?”
“Because she kept talking to me.”
“I see...” Song You couldn't help but laugh.
It seemed the cat didn't quite understand people yet. Actually, talking to cats was completely normal for people.
Lady Calico turned her head, staring at him in confusion. “So, did she not figure it out?”
“Most likely, she did.”
“Why?”
“Because you also feel she did.”
“Yes.”
“It’s done...”
The calico cat flipped over and ran onto the bed. She collapsed and rolled naturally around.
Then she lay there and asked the Daoist priest. “Can we talk here?”
“Yes.”
“Can I go catch mice?”
“You can,” Song You paused, “but after all you aren’t an ordinary cat and have already transformed. You should still be mindful not to enter locked or closed rooms. It's impolite for us to enter some places without permission.”
“The mice are all in those rooms.”
“Then there's nothing we can do.” As Song You spoke, he lay back down.
The room was quite large, located at the very back of the temple. Even if someone knocked on the mountain gate, it wouldn't disturb him. It was also next to a bamboo grove, filled with the sound of wind rustling through the bamboo, which Song You found quite pleasant.
In addition to having the best guest room, he was also treated to excellent food and drink. Even his jujube-red horse benefited, eating only top-quality semi-dry hay.
Thus, he and the cat settled in there.
It was the last third of the first month of the lunar year, and there were still a few days until the Great Liujiang Gathering on the second day of the second month.
Apart from eating meals together, the temple owner also often invited him for tea to chat about matters in Anqing County and Lingquan County. Or he personally took him out to enjoy the scenery of Anqing, in pursuit of seas of clouds and sunsets. The temple owner had lived the life of an immortal in Anqing County for decades and knew all the best spots for scenery and where to view them.
Exploring mountains and waters was also a form of cultivation.
***
Second day of the second month, Mati Mountain.
Today was a misty and rainy day.
Song You held an earth-yellow oil-paper umbrella, and took the calico cat to Mati Mountain.
Anqing was truly a city of mountains and rivers.
However, most of Anqing's mountains were small, one clump after another, small and steep, with the steepest looking like stone pillars stuck into the ground. Some were even inverted, making them mostly unclimbable.
But there were also larger, climbable mountains.
Mati Mountain was the largest mountain outside Anqing City.
The scenery here was also quite beautiful. Just a few days ago, when the temple owner asked if he wanted to visit, Song You declined.
He waited until today to see it.
Today's mist added a unique touch.
The Great Liujiang Gathering was not held on Mati Mountain itself, but at its foot. At the foot, there was a very large open area, stretching from the foot of the mountain to the riverbank, paved entirely with bluestone slabs, known as Swallow Immortal Terrace.
When Song You arrived, his first impression was that…
There were many people, a lot.
Most of them were jianghu people who were easily distinguishable.
Most jianghu people didn't carry umbrellas.
There were also some merchants, people from prominent families, playful sons of officials, even spies from the authorities, and local citizens of Anqing County.
Some of these people did carry umbrellas, so Song You did not stand out.
There were probably over ten thousand jianghu people alone.
What does over ten thousand people look like?
In modern times, if a university could gather all its students for an assembly, there would be more than ten thousand people.
But this was not modern times.
Due to the implementation of livelihood policies and the introduction of superior rice species from abroad etc., the Great Yan population was nearly two hundred million. There were a total of one thousand eight hundred counties, each with around a hundred thousand people. Anqing, being remote, might not even have a hundred thousand people. And this was the population of the entire county. Most people did not even live in the county city. The permanent population of Anqing County City alone might be just over ten thousand.
No wonder there was no lodging available in the city.
Song You shook his head, wanting to squeeze in to watch but he thought the center was probably occupied by famous jianghu factions. As he hesitated, he inadvertently glanced up…
There was a small pavilion on the mountainside.
Surveying the surroundings, he saw a small path that looked like a fine gray line from afar on the mountain leading to the pavilion.
Thus, he headed in that direction.
As he walked, there were no fellow travelers.
Perhaps the jianghu people found the pavilion too far away, and with the misty rain today, it was hard to see anything clearly from the mountain. They preferred to squeeze into the crowd, knowing that once someone started organizing things, everyone would naturally have a position to watch.
Song You was not familiar with martial arts, and wouldn't see much even if he was close. Perhaps seeing things a bit blurred was even better.
He reached the pavilion shortly after starting his ascent.
From this height, he could take in the entire Swallow Immortal Terrace. Naturally, he could also see the distant mountains and rivers.
Song You was momentarily stunned.
It wasn't the Swallow Immortal Terrace or the jianghu people on it that amazed him, but the distant landscape.
With the fine drizzle today, mist arose from the rivers and the land. Sunlight couldn't penetrate, turning the mountains and rivers into varying shades of gray and black. From afar, willow branches along the river looked like numerous fine threads that were blown in one direction. A small boat quietly sailed on the river. Whether it was the distant scenery or the mountain top, everything was blurred. It was hard to distinguish clouds or mist from rain. The people below looked like tiny black dots. Everything was hazy, as if submerged in a world of mist.
This was definitely a landscape that couldn't be seen from Yin-Yang Mountain.
Even in his past world, seeing such a beautiful scene would have been extremely difficult.
“Plop...” Song You closed his umbrella, placing it aside. Seeing the pavilion was clean, he sat cross-legged on the ground, quietly gazing ahead, while the calico cat yawned beside him.
Without him noticing, the Great Liujiang Gathering began.
It started within this ink painting-like landscape.
Song You directed some of his attention to the Swallow Immortal Terrace below.
To be precise, the Great Liujiang Gathering didn't have an exact start time. Once jianghu people arrived, started talking, and drinking, the gathering had begun. Today was the day the martial arts competitions started.
Jianghu people ultimately valued their martial arts skills.
Regardless of wealth, they only had one head each. With poor martial arts skills, they would be looked down upon and bullied. With superior skills, they earned respect from everyone they encountered in the jianghu and avoided conflicts.
Before long, competitions began below.
To Song You's surprise, the scene was not as blurred as he imagined, nor as distant. It was quite clear.
Two men were competing below, one wielding a long spear, the other a slender sword.
One wore a conical bamboo hat, the other a woven rush raincoat.
The fine rain blurred vision and dampened sound, so Song You couldn't hear the clashing of spear and sword. The crowd's cheers that drifted over also became faint. He only saw that there was a yin-yang symbol[1] in the middle of the Swallow Immortal Terrace and the two were competing over it. Their movements were agile as they tested and countered each other’s moves.
The tension of the duel seemed washed away by the fine rain.
Or perhaps having seen so much of the landscape, he hadn't fully returned to the present. To Song You, the two seemed to be dancing, their movements unrestrained beyond what people in his past world could enact. It was like they were painting with each strike, every movement of their spear and sword shedding rainwater droplets. Every agile movement caused water droplets to fall in a circle. It was like how someone spinning an umbrella would cause rainwater to fall like a bead curtain.
Even the swallows flying through the rain should have droplets sliding off their feathers.
This was an ink painting splashed out by the rain and mist.
Song You even spotted Heroine Wu.
She sat with her sect mates in a prime front-row seat, watching with relish.
Occasionally, she craned her neck, scanning the crowd as if searching for someone. Perhaps she was looking for him, but he was in a pavilion halfway up the mountain, and she clearly couldn’t find him.
Soon, the duel ended.
The two seemed evenly matched, and also seemed to be old acquaintances. In the end, they stopped without deciding a winner.
The result was perhaps clear in their hearts.
Perhaps also in the hearts of the spectators.
But not in Song You’s heart.
Moreover, he didn’t care. He wasn't there to see the results, the fighting, or the excitement.
It was simply to watch a grand human spectacle.
From morning to afternoon, numerous duels took place below. Sabers, spears, swords, halberds, hatchets, battle-axes, hooks, pitch-forks, whips, jian[2], maces, claws, tang[3], sticks, long lances, cudgels, crutches and flails…all eighteen kinds of weapons were wielded in turn. Numerous martial artists either stopped at a critical point or painted the scene with blood. They either moved lightly or struck with swift force, opening the spectators' eyes to new horizons.
Xishan Sect's disciples also competed.
True to Heroine Wu's boasting, they not only fought beautifully, but often won. So much so that when they stepped onto the stage sometimes, everyone would look around because they did not particularly want to challenge them.
In this way regardless of victories, Xishan Sect had established a reputation for competency in jianghu people’s hearts.
Without him noticing, it was already evening.
The light dimmed, adding depth to the ink painting.
The crowd below began to disperse.
Song You, still unsatisfied, left the pavilion, reopened his umbrella, and headed down the mountain.
Just as he reached the foot of the mountain, and before he walked out of Swallow Immortal Terrace, he saw a swallow flying in the distance. It darted gracefully through the misty rain, adding a touch of freedom to the landscape.
Song You smiled and was about to leave when he was suddenly startled. He narrowed his eyes and looked up into the sky again.
It was only the start of the second month, barely early spring. Swallows migrate south for winter, most of them flying several tens of thousands of li. Wasn’t it too early for them to return after winter?
Vaguely sensing something, he looked back…
In the dense misty rain, Mati Mountain remained unchanged.
But where was the pavilion?
And where was the small mountain path?
1. ☜
2. Ancient weapon like a long, solid metal truncheon. ☜
3. Ancient weapon resembling a pitchfork. ☜
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang#/media/File:Yin_and_Yang_symbol.svg ☜
1. Yin-yang is a concept that originated in Chinese philosophy, describing an opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. ☜
2. Ancient weapon like a long, solid metal truncheon. ☜
3. Ancient weapon resembling a pitchfork. ☜
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